Nantucket cemetery excavation outrages many

Friday

Jan 30, 2009 at 7:37 AM

The scene at the Quaker Cemetery Monday morning came as a shock to passersby, as the rolling hills where some of the island’s first European settlers buried their loved ones was being torn up by a backhoe.

Jason Graziadei

The scene at the Quaker Cemetery Monday morning came as a shock to passersby, as the rolling hills where some of the island’s first European settlers buried their loved ones was being torn up by a backhoe.

It wasn’t vandalism, although some may consider it so, but rather a town-sponsored project to determine whether a bike path or sidewalk could be constructed on the Quaker Road side of the cemetery.

Still, the sight of a headstone surrounded by excavated soil and deep cuts into the ground seemed more like desecration of the cemetery to many driving on the short route between Hummock Pond and Madaket roads.

On Tuesday afternoon, an archeologist monitoring the digging did indeed detect signs of grave shafts, and the project was immediately shut down. No bike path or sidewalk will ever be built on that side of the cemetery, town officials said, and the land will be restored to its previous state as soon as possible.

But for some, the damage had already been done.

“No municipal or state project, in the name of progress nor convenience, should preempt good sense, nor decency,” said town clerk Catherine Flanagan Stover, a member of the town’s Cemetery Commission Work Group. “It doesn’t matter to me that the graves are there or not. It’s an enclosure that’s been blocked off for 100 years and it should not be disturbed. It’s just extremely upsetting.”